


Light & Luciferin

by R_Knight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Enemies to Lovers, Folklore, M/M, Magical Creatures, Multi, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28861473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Knight/pseuds/R_Knight
Summary: Crack open his ribs, Harry thought.Mine or yours?Tom wondered.(In which Harry is something horrible. Powerful.Special.And Tom wants him for his own.)
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I didn't anticipate HP fanfiction being my next project, but I'm going with it. Some brief background: Tom exists in Harry’s time as well as a couple of death eaters, and I’ve whiffed the timeline so harry is 11 and starting Hogwarts in 2004 (when Tom is in his 3rd year), though this doesn’t really affect much considering the Wizarding World is pretty static. Everything else will be explained in-story. 
> 
> I recommend listening to Egene Onegin by Tchaikovsky for this chapter.

_“On earth at night in moonlight I can always imagine the yellow_

_of sunshine, the scarlet of invisible blossoms._

_But here, when the [submarine] searchlight was off,_

_yellow and orange and red were unthinkable._

_The blue which filled all space_

_admitted no thought of other colors.”_

-Deep _,_ James Nestor

Not all folktales endured. Some of them, those so old their origins could not be traced, fell into obscurity. Remembered only by elders and the occasional academic, the story they told, the lessons they taught, were lost to time. Often there were other stories to fill the space they had left. Sometimes, though, something important was forgotten. A lesson. A message.

A warning.

June 2004

Harry

(Harry James Potter grew up with loving parents. He grew up with loving godparents too. In all respects, he was a normal, happy, magical child. He would go to Hogwarts, and he would be sorted into Gryffindor, and he would get middling grades. He would make friends and play quidditch and never learn to fight a dark lord. No, Harry Potter was a content, well-loved boy, due to start his first year at Hogwarts in a few months. And James and Lily decided they should go on holiday to celebrate.)

Harry had slept through most of the journey to Montreal. He couldn’t be blamed for waking in the middle of the night really. Nor could he be blamed for venturing outside their cabin, just for a little peek at the surroundings he hadn’t seen when his father had carried him through the threshold, still sleeping. He’d have protested if he’d been awake - he was definitely too old to be carried around now, even if his dad insisted otherwise.

The cabin was dark and quiet when he snuck from his room and out the front door. He could hear snores from his parents bedroom, and the whistling of wind through a hole in the cabin wall somewhere, but that was all. Even outside, when he had carefully pried open the door without causing too much sound, was strangely quiet. The trees rustled. There was a hoot somewhere, the sound similar to their family owl. It was very dark, even with the moon half full in the sky, and he could barely see beyond the cabin porch.

It was a little scary. Harry decided he’d seen all he needed to, turning to go back inside, but something caught his eye. He looked back into the darkness of the forest that surrounded their cabin, wondering if he’d just imagined it - but no, there it was again. A blue shimmer in the darkness. _This was a bad idea_ , Harry thought, watching the blue shimmer get brighter and brighter, closer and closer. He turned fully towards the light. It was very pretty. Was it magic? Had someone cast a spell? The blue glowed like lumos did, but it wasn’t shaped like lumos. It was like a snake, almost. Or a worm, threading its way through the darkness towards him, playful. He wanted to touch it.

Harry did not consciously decide to leave the safety of the porch; Harry did choose to take a step towards the strange floating light, but he did so anyway. Somewhere, part of him was thinking that this was _wrong_ , the light wasn’t warm and inviting at all, he had to get back inside, or call for his parents, do _something_. But that part was quiet, and becoming quieter still as he took a step off the porch and into the forest. His feet were bare, but he barely felt the twigs and rocks underfoot. The light was closer, bigger. He wanted to touch it, hold it, eat it. Another step, and he was close enough to feel the strange electric heat that surrounded the light, like a hand stroking one of the old television screens his muggle aunt had. It tickled strangely. He laughed.

He reached out to touch it, and suddenly, like a dozen fireflies waking up all at once, he was surrounded by light. Caged in by half a dozen of these strange worms, and then by a dozen more that were thinner, like pieces of string. He could _hear_ those ones, crackling static that made his hair stand on end. He imagined how his hair must look, and laughed again. It was a silly image. In front of him - above him, there was a sound in return. Creaking. Clicking. The blue lights were laughing too, maybe. And that was okay, but the laughing was very loud. Very loud and becoming louder still, until Harry couldn’t help but wince, covering his ears with his hands. It _hurt_. It hurt very, very badly. But the laughter continued, louder and louder until suddenly, with a _pop_ , there was no more sound at all.

Harry cried out, dropping to his knees and closing his eyes. As he did so, he was hit with a sudden rush of clarity. A light switching back on, and _oh god_ _oh_ he knew now that he shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have walked towards the strange light, but it had _controlled_ him. Did something to his brain that made him not think and so he couldn’t open his eyes again, because the lights would make him forget, but he was hurting so much and he had to get away before -

Before -

The sound that was no longer a sound, just a painful echoing drum in his chest, stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Harry made to get up, to step backward, turn and run, but no, no it was too late for that, because he stepped backward and into the electric heat of the glowing worms that had encircled him. He screamed, though he couldn’t hear it, feeling the material of his shirt sizzle and burn where they touched him, his own flesh doing the same. He dropped to the ground again, panting, eyes squeezed shut. The thing shifted, and Harry could tell, now, it was just one creature. Something the worms were attached to. He could tell in the tremble of the ground as it shifted its weight, in the warm, rotting breath that ghosted over his face. He tried not to throw up, shaking and shaking. Hoping his parents had heard him yell before, because he couldn’t even find the breath in him to make a sound now.

The breath lingered as the creature sniffed him. A wet tongue on his face, and it must have made a decision, because before Harry could react, there was the sudden shock of pain again, this time on his face. Harry couldn’t help but open his eyes, a reaction to the pain as much as slamming them shut had been, and immediately he regretted it, because the sight of the thing was awful, terrible, _evil_. The blue glowing lights lit up the creature well enough that Harry could see it clearly this close, and it was like a bear, but all _wrong_. It’s head was bigger than Harry, each of its huge teeth bigger than his head, and Harry knew there was no escaping this thing. Knew that even if his parents came now it would be too late. It was panting heavily, drooling blue liquid that glowed like the tentacles that grew from its flesh, protruding strangely from knots of muscle that covered its back and sides.

One huge paw had come down on his face, glowing claws now stained red with blood, and he knew somehow that it had just been testing before, playing with him. If it had used the full weight of its huge body, Harry would have been dead already. And then the paw lifted again, and all Harry could think was _no no no_ _not this, not like this not **this**._ And then there was a shudder of magic hitting it in the face, making it pull back just enough that harry could turn over onto his belly, dig his hands into the ground to try and pull himself _away,_ but no, it had already recovered and the sizzling lights were burning his outstretched arms, and all he could do was curl in a ball, hiding his face and his belly and wishing for his parents to help him, save him.

Huge claws sliced through the flesh at his back like a knife through warm butter. _Please_ Harry thought, crying bloody tears into the ground as it clawed him again, not even trying to eat him, _please be done. Just eat me, just do it. Please be done._

 _Please_ , Harry thought, and as the sun began to rise over the horizon, the weak morning light shining through the dense forest trees, Harry had his wish. It was done.

The creature was gone.

*

Harry survived. The wounds healed, although the scars that remained were not easily hidden. The nights spent after the attack were tense. After his parents had sent out an emergency message to Remus and Sirius asking for a long-distance portkey so they could get home quickly, Harry spent his time healing in bed, not once left alone. Not that he minded. The attack had been crystal clear in his mind at first, but every minute that passed by it seemed to fade. He woke up shaking and crying from nightmares where all he could see was glowing blue light, no idea what it was or why it scared him so much.

His body was healing well, and he probably could have gotten out of bed already, but he knew what his family were worried about. The moon hadn’t been full, but his injuries looked like wolf injuries. He had overheard Remus talking to his parents; combined with the strange burn marks and the glowing blue light he remembered, they thought that maybe a wizard had controlled a wolf, or even maybe a werewolf. Not much was known about wolf changes - if it could be forced on them, if someone attacked by one of the feral werewolves that were still human but not quite could be changed. All they could do was treat his wounds, hold him tightly when he woke from nightmares, and wait.

They didn’t have to wait long. The moon had been half full when it had happened, so all too soon Remus was taking his last dose of wolfsbane and leaving Harry with a gentle hand on his shoulder. For all he tried to hide it, the look on his face was grim. Harry watched him leave, feeling small and scared. Sirius, curled up in animagus form at his side, made a little sound in his throat as he went. Harry looked down at him.

“Aren’t you going with him?” Harry asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. Sirius huffed burrowing further into his side. Harry felt a little guilty that Remus would be alone during the full moon, but he couldn’t help but feel a little better about Sirius being with him. If he did become a werewolf, at least he knew that Sirius had experience with dealing with out of control werewolves, even if he hadn’t had to do it in a while. Harry didn’t have to worry about hurting his mum and dad if Sirius was here.

In the end though he didn’t have to worry about hurting his parents at all. Nothing happened. The full moon faded into the lightening sky as the sun pulled itself up and over the horizon, and Harry allowed his parents to hold him and cry and laugh and push away Sirius as he tried to lick everyone's faces. The nightmares would linger. The scars would stay. But Harry was not a werewolf, he had not been damned to the hard life his parents had feared. He was a happy, healthy boy, with scars that did not ache. Harry was lucky.

And in a couple of months, when the incident had all but faded from his mind, Harry would begin his first year at Hogwarts.

*

(One story, all but forgotten, goes like this: During any eclipse, there is a softening of the barriers between worlds, a thinning of the threads that separate. A doorway would open, and different types of eclipse beheld different doorways. Connected different worlds. When Venus passed by the sun, once, twice in quick succession then not for a hundred years to come, the door that opened was a small, delicate thing. Hard to come through, easy to close. Whatever passed through would have to be cunning. Careful. Powerful.

And so the creatures that passed through were the most dangerous of their kind: beasts not of Earth, beasts from _below_ , from hell, from death itself. Great, heaving things not bound by Earth rules; translucent almost, blind and terrible and _glowing._ Of the darkness, and built for it. They pressed through the doorway and came to gorge on the food they found here, knowing their time was limited. Knowing that when the doorway closed they would be dragged back into the lightless world from which they came. The doorway did not open often, and the feast was rare.

And rare happenings made for rare stories. Not many would pass down a story a hundred years in the making, and those that did rarely did so accurately. The story was told, and told, and told, and somewhere along the way, something important was forgotten. The shape of the creatures and the sounds they made. The lure of their lights.

The way the sickness spread.)

Tom

Tom Riddle would grow up under the care of his mother. A mother who used a love potion to get what she wanted, a mother who was the daughter of Marvolo Gaunt, but a mother nonetheless. She had regretted not the love potion but her choice of partner, and so she had left him and raised Tom herself, and Tom Riddle - he knew love. Not, perhaps, his own, but his mothers. What it felt like to be cared for, protected (sometimes savagely. Despite her lack of power, Morfin only dared to call Tom mudblood once. Never again).

A Tom Riddle that knew love learned to be patient. Learned restraint. Aspired to be minister, to have revenge on the petty purebloods that would treat him like dirt. Apathetic towards muggles. He wanted magical society in England to bend to his will, but he wanted it fairly. He wanted people to come to him willingly, happily. He wanted to win because he was _better_ than everyone else, not because he scared them into submission. Well, not only that. 

So Tom was going to become minister. _Then_ he’d figure out the immortality thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking weekly updates for this, but we will see. This sort-of-prologue is to gauge interest. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry was a shambling thing made from broken parts. Glowing blue blue blue, turning his heavy head towards the troll, seeing the air, tasting the blood, and thinking _help_. Thinking _help them, eat that, be done._
> 
> And so he did. And he did. And it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things gotta get worse before they get better. For real - this fic gets a lot lighter from here, I promise. Recommended listening: Suspirium - Thom Yorke.

_"At sixty feet down, we are not quite ourselves._

_At three hundred, we are profoundly changed."_

-Deep, James Nestor

September 2004

Harry

Hogwarts was even more amazing than Harry ever imagined. The stories his parents and godparents told him were always effusive, wistful, but even still they didn’t measure up to the real thing. Harry didn’t think living here would get old _ever_. The sorting ceremony went quickly, although the hat’s smug dithering had worried him, he got sorted into Gryffindor like he’d hoped, grinning helplessly at the cheers and whoops that surrounded him as he joined the table with the people he’d be living with for the next seven years. He’d made friends with a boy called Ron and a girl called Hermione on the train to Hogwarts, and he sat himself down between them now, joining in with the table’s conversation eagerly.

Overall Harry’s first day went great. There was only one hiccup, right after the sorting ceremony had finished and they were heading to the Hogwarts tower for the first time. A Slytherin boy Harry recognised from earlier called his name, and he turned from the conversation he’d been having with Ron and Hermione to see what the boy wanted. He was flanked on either side by bigger, broader Slytherin boys. There were some girls hanging back behind them too.

“Uh, hi?” Harry said. His dad had told him some pretty terrible stories about Slytherins over the years, but mum had also insisted that his dad was just as bad at school, so Harry should reserve judgement until he got to know them. Something told him this boy wasn’t exactly looking to make friends though.

“So it’s true,” the boy said, “My father said the Potter boy was attacked by a werewolf, but I didn’t think you’d be so…” he trailed off, eyes flicking over Harry’s face in a way that he was becoming familiar with. Cataloguing all the scars, wondering if his face was the least or the worst of it.

He didn’t have to finish his sentence though, because one of the Slytherin girls did for him, muttering “ _ugly_ ,” under her breath. They all laughed. It didn’t really hurt, though, was the thing. None of the friends he’d made so far cared about the scars. They’d had questions, sure, but already they had stopped staring at his ruined skin and started really looking at him when they spoke. Even if he hadn’t made any friends, growing up with Remus around had changed his perspective on those sorts of things. Harry didn’t think Remus was ugly. Also, if the way Sirius kissed the scar on the bridge of Remus’ nose in the late mornings after the full moon was any indication - he wasn’t an anomaly.

Before he could respond though, Ron cut in, his voice tight, “dunno where you lot get off calling anyone ugly.” The girl that had called him ugly made a high sound of outrange, and the boy’s mouth thinned into a vicious snarl.

“ _Weasley._ ”

“Malfoy.”

Ah, Malfoy. Harry had heard _that_ name before. He rolled his eyes, grabbing Ron’s arm before he could do something stupid like draw his wand. “Alright, we’re gonna go now. I don’t really care what you or your friends think of me Malfoy.” Ron obliged grudgingly, and Hermione seemed happy to be leaving the confrontation. Harry thought Malfoy would leave it there, but as they reached the top of the stairs he spoke again, jeering.

“We’d best keep an eye out around the full moon then, wouldn’t want anyone getting attacked by that _halfbreed_.”

Harry only froze for a second, hearing the sharp intake of breath from both Ron and Hermione. It was strange, for that word to hurt. He knew it didn’t mean anything when he wasn’t a werewolf in the first place, and his friends knew that too, but still it was a glimpse into the hardship Remus had endured for most of his life. A glimpse of how people would see Harry before they knew him. It left a strange ache in his chest to think about, a shimmering heat rising in his throat. An itch under his skin. But then there was Ron’s arm over his shoulder, Hermione’s gentle hand at his elbow, and he let himself be calmed. It didn’t matter what other people thought, not when he had his own people that didn’t care.

*

Harry went to his first potions lesson armed with the knowledge his parents had gifted him about their own history with Professor Snape. His dad contrite, his mother amused but also a little sad for the friendship she no longer had. _I don’t want this to undermine your respect towards a teacher,_ she had said. Not that it mattered much in the end, because Snape did enough to undermine Harry’s respect for him on his own. As time passed, things became less fraught between them, but in Harry’s first year Snape clearly only saw his father and treated him accordingly. Harry mostly tried to not let it get to him. Sent owls to Sirius just to get commiserating letters back, although any suggestions for hexes he might attempt were always scribbled out by Remus with notes to _behave_ and _ignore everything Sirius says_.

Snape didn’t even treat him much worse than any of the other Gryffindors really, but sometimes he’d say something and Harry could just _tell_ it was James Potter he was seeing, not Harry. Like it was his fault his dad had been, as Sirius carefully put it, _a bit of a git_. Mostly Harry stewed in his own frustration, but every so often the unfairness of it all had him itchy and flushed with anger in class, asking woodenly to be excused so he could escape to the bathrooms and splash water on his face. It was stupid. He _knew_ it was stupid to get so worked up over nothing, but the shaky feeling in his chest beat a little harder every time, a ticking metronome crackling through his chest. He felt _dizzy_ with it.

And so Harry was already feeling overheated and sick to his stomach after escaping the potions classroom when he heard a scream from the direction of the girls toilets. Harry shook his head like a dog, trying to get rid of the feelings inside him as he ran outside the bathroom and straight into Ron.

“Ro- what?”

“Me and Hermione came to check on you since potions finished, but she went to the girl’s bathroom first and-” Harry was running before Ron could finish. He had no clue what he was going to do, but the heat was spreading like wildfire across his limbs, the metronome tick like a countdown in his chest, and he didn’t _think_. He just ran, Ron at his heels, shoving their way between scared students shouting that there was a _troll_ in the bathroom. Harry didn’t know how they’d fight off a troll, but they had to try.

They burst through the door as Hermione let out another scream, but the troll didn’t even notice them, smashing through the bathroom stalls and sinks as it tried to get to her. At first, all he could think to do was distract it, pull its attention from her by throwing anything he could find at it. Ron joined in too, picking up stray bits of wood and debris and hurling them at the troll until finally it noticed there was someone else in the room, its attention diverted. But then the troll was stumbling towards _them_ , and it was huge, each footstep shaking the ground, groaning loud and long and Harry felt something twist and crack open in his chest. A burst of fear, of familiarity.

Discordant images stretched across his vision, a troll, a glowing beast, a bathroom, a dark forest, the shaking ground beneath him. The pounding, deafening sound of his heart and the metronome ticking in reply. _Tick, tick, tick._ Back and forth the images went, between now and then and now and then and now, and now, and now - the heat rose. Caught. Spread like a wildfire, and Harry shook all over, right out of his skin, flesh peeling from muscle, muscle slipping from bone.

Hermione’s screams drowned out by the cracking and splintering. The great rumbling growl in his chest, if it could be called that. Less of a sound, more of a feeling, a vibration, a sickening metronome in his belly that let him see the blood trickle from his friends ears when his eyes wouldn’t let him. _Tick,_ his friends cowering with their hands over their ears, _tick_ , the troll taking a stumbling step backwards, _tick tick_ , the slower than human heart inside it, thick with blood.

Harry was a shambling thing made from broken parts. Glowing blue blue blue, turning his heavy head towards the troll, seeing the air, tasting the blood, and thinking _help_. Thinking _help them_ , _eat that_ , _be done_.

And so he did. And he did. And it was.

*

Later, Dumbledore asked them what happened. The three of them lied through their teeth, telling him they’d distracted the troll and then Hermione had used _incendio_ to kill it, burn it alive (to hide the blood, the gore, the missing chunks of flesh and bone and viscera). Dumbledore looked grave, but hadn’t pushed them. They were children, after all, and they had just done a very brave thing. He offered them lemon drops and house points and sent them on their way with only the barest of explanations for the event; professor Quirrell, out of his mind, still believing the rhetoric Grindelwald had spread many years ago, had sought to do something about it.

“Not sure what the point of letting loose a bloody troll was though,” Ron grumbled into the mug of tea he held between his hands, curled up on a sofa in the Gryffindor common room. It was late, now. Too late for them to be up still, but none of them would be able to sleep tonight, not after everything that had happened.

“To scare us. To close the school. To hurt anyone that wasn’t pureblood. I don’t think he even knew. Dumbledore said he’d gone mad,” Hermione said quietly.

Harry didn’t really care why Quirrell had let in the Troll. He was tired, and he was scared, and so he asked what had been on his mind all evening. “I...was a bear?”

Ron startled, almost dropping his tea. Hermione went pale, like she was only now remembering what had happened.

“No Harry,” she said shakily, the fear in her voice a damnation. “Not just a bear.”

They lapsed into silence, awkward and stifling. It was confirmation of something he’d already known, if he was honest with himself. He was curled up by the fire to try and absorb some warmth he hadn’t been able to gain back since he’d become human again. If he was human at all. He didn’t feel entirely human, not with the memory of slick wet organs in his mouth and the phantom feeling of extra appendages protruding from his back and sides, lit up with electricity and the heady thrum of _power_. The memory of the attack in Montreal had faded along with his adrenaline, but he knew. He knew the thing he’d turned into was the same thing that had attacked him that night.

“I didn’t know,” he said finally, not looking up from his hands, picking at the tiny bit of blood beneath his fingernails. “I didn’t - I’ve never heard of-”

“I know,” Hermione cut in quickly, her voice too kind to bear, “I’ve never heard of anything like this either. We should - maybe we _should_ tell someone. Get help.”

“ _No,”_ Harry said quickly, looking up at his friends and their sad, scared faces. “Please, I’m sorry. It’s just, my godfather, Remus, he’s a-a werewolf, and I know how hard it is for him and if people found out- If my parents found out-” Harry felt his face crumple, thinking about how distraught they’d be, guilty for letting this happen, for not noticing. After a moment there was a warm hand on his shoulder. Ron, scared but determined.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said, still shaky, but her gaze was steady. “We won’t tell anyone Harry. We can look into it ourselves. I’m sure we can find answers in the library somewhere.”

*

They did not find answers in the library. Harry got used to the frustrated tangle of Hermione’s hair, bent over a dusty tome she insisted _had to be the one_ , over and over. He got used to telling them all he could, trying to map out a link, a description, anything that could give them a lead. But no, they didn’t find answers during their long nights spent with library books. Neither did they find answers in the restricted section when they snuck in during their second year. Ron could never get anything out of his parents, and Harry had never been able to broach the subject with his own. He’d asked about animagus transformations, but he was clearly different, and besides, most of the time it just ended up with Sirius and James transforming and playing what looked like a very dangerous game of tag with each other.

They didn’t find answers during their second year, or their third, or any time they looked while they were at Hogwarts. No, answers wouldn’t come until much, much later, and when they did, it wasn’t by their own efforts.

January 2007

Tom

Tom was in his sixth year at Hogwarts, and everything was going to plan. He was a prefect, pretty much assured to be head boy next year with the dismal competition he had, and top of every class he’d taken. Soon he’d be graduating and accepting a job at the ministry, well on his way to becoming the youngest minister for magic in British history. For now though, Tom was looking for a room to practice spell work. He had no interest in sharing this with his acquaintances, it would do them no good to think they could work spells above their abilities, attempting to perform on par with him. So he needed a quiet, empty room to himself, somewhere far from the dungeons where there was a risk of running into someone. The seventh floor had seemed a safe bet, and sure enough there was a door that had seemingly never been there before, appearing out of thin air. Well then.

He pushed the door open a crack, but found inside only darkness, pitch black. Except - no, not just that. There was a soft blue glow from deep within the room. Fairy lights, fireflies. Snakes blue like a patronus. _Oh_ , Tom thought, _what are you?_ A step closer, and he barely noticed the door falling shut behind him, a strange clicking sound echoing around the room, making his heart pound in his ears. He should be afraid. Or if not afraid, at the very least concerned. But the lights were so...inviting. He wanted to touch them. He _wanted_.

But then there was a sudden _crack_ ; a sharp hiss of pain and the blinding brightness of the room filling with light. Tom blinked rapidly until he could see again, wand in his hand before he even knew what he was looking at. But when his vision evened out it was only a normal classroom, and in the center of it, a dishevelled looking Gryffindor boy. Potter, he knew, simply because he made an effort to know everyone who might be of use to him in the school. He didn’t know Potter beyond the simple fact of his lineage, the impressive defeat of a troll with his friends in his first year. Impressive and lucky, but hardly interesting beyond that. His grades were average, his family reach was no further than that of any of the pureblood Slytherin boys that were already willing to come at his beck and call. His godfather was estranged from the rest of his family

There were the scars too. Interesting to look at, but the boy was no werewolf. Tom had double checked on a few full moons during his first year just to be sure. No, he was just an ordinary boy lucky to have escaped with his life.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Tom shook off the strange feeling that had settled over him, the memory quickly fading.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked as he tucked away his wand. Potter shrugged, looking pained.

“I’m behind in transfiguration. I was practising but I got distracted- was trying to produce a patronus.” Tom, so sure of his own initial assessment of the boy, of his own inability to be wrong, didn’t see the lie. The memory of the feeling in his chest was already fading, and yes, the blue light he’d seen _had_ been the colour of a patronus.

“Fine,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out this late though. Go back to your tower. If I see you around again, I’ll take points from Gryffindor.” The relief on Harry’s face was palpable, probably worried Tom was going to send him to Filch or something. Tom knew restraint though. He knew being liked would get him where he wanted to be. So he let Potter flee to his Gryffindor tower, and he settled in to read the book he’d taken from the restricted section. Soon enough, thoughts of the strange blue lights slipped from his mind. Sand through a cracked hourglass. Tom Riddle read his book, practised his magic. Then he left the room of requirement, never having seen the deep, angry scars embedded in the ceiling above him.

March 2008

Hermione

Hermione hadn’t seen Harry change since their first year. Time should have blurred the memory, made it less shocking, but years later she still couldn’t shake the image of Harry’s body flaying apart to reveal the - creature. Monster. Whatever it was that was inside him, whatever it was that they could find no mention of anywhere, _nothing_. Time at Hogwarts had passed in relative peace since their first year, with nothing more than Draco’s continued irritance and the question of what Harry was to contend with. Umbridge changed that.

Appointed by the ministry, she clearly had no interest in teaching them anything of importance, only her own bigoted ideas. With Dumbledore as headmaster, she couldn’t gain enough power to make real changes at the school, but her lessons were terrible, and from the get-go Hermione could tell she had it in for Harry. _Delusional hag_ , Ron had called her, and Hermione privately agreed. The way she spoke to Harry, the way she looked at him in disgust wasn’t subtle. She clearly thought that he was a werewolf and hiding it. It was horrible, and Hermione wanted desperately to tell an adult, but she knew Harry would never forgive her if she did. He wanted to keep to himself, avoid any attention and get through school without anyone finding out about him.

But the way Umbridge _treated_ him. He had been disappearing more and more often, and Hermione knew that he was going to the room of requirement when that happened. He’d told her and Ron when he’d found it, and she’d been there a few times since, but not when Harry went on his own because he needed space. To breathe, to transform. He could control the change, to an extent, but if he was upset or angry, or went a long time without it, she could almost _see_ it in him, beneath his skin. Twitching like it wanted to be free. Like _he_ wanted to be free. Harry had never been able to put into words properly what it felt like, and Hermione still didn’t really understand how Harry could change and retain intention and personality but still...do the things he’d done, back when they fought that troll. It would have made more sense to her if he wasn’t himself. If he couldn’t remember. But not a lot about Harry made sense.

So Umbridge had been behaving more and more erratically as time went on, and Harry was disappearing more and more often, and then - he’d snapped. Not like a creature snapped. Like a boy did. He’d stood up from his desk after she’d made another snide comment, and clear as a bell; _I’m not a werewolf professor, no matter how much you wish I was_. The sound of outrage she had made in reply was still ringing through Hermione’s ears that evening when Harry returned from the detention she’d given him, his head bowed.

“Oi, Harry mate,” Ron called after him, and Harry startled, turning towards them, his face pinched. He came and sat with them though, hunched over on the sofa next to Ron with a haunted expression Hermione could barely stand to look at. Harry could transform into a creature beyond their understanding, more powerful and dangerous than they knew, but he was also just a boy. A boy with _I must not tell lies_ carved into the back of one hand.

“ _Harry,_ we have to-” tell someone, she wanted to say. Insist, really. This was so far beyond what she’d have thought an adult, a _professor_ capable of doing to a student. The cruelty, the intentional humiliation was so awful she wanted to cry. But she knew that Harry wouldn’t want that. His parents would find out eventually, but for now, at school, he only had her and Ron to protect him. And they had to do _something_.

*

So they make a plan. A rushed one, desperate to scare Umbridge off before she could do something even worse than she already had done to Harry. They don’t tell Harry about it; she and Ron had a fake conversation in hearing distance of Filch about students meeting in the forbidden forest. A secret club and dark magic. Umbridge knew within the day, and predictably, she didn’t inform any other teachers of what she had heard. What Hermione hadn’t anticipated though, was her dragging the three of them into the forest with her at night, wide-eyed and frantic.

“You _will_ show me where you and all your filthy friends are meeting,” she’d said at the edge of the forest, her wand at Harry’s neck. He’d looked confused at first, then understanding. Resigned.

Hermione had only wanted to scare her. Be rid of her. She hadn’t thought, really. They were desperate, worried for Harry and not knowing what else to do. But now she knew this had been the worst thing they could have done. No one knew where they were. No one would be saving them now. They were all in their pyjamas, but Harry wasn’t even wearing _shoes_. His feet were already scratched and covered in mud and the vulnerability of the image made her want to cry.

“ _This way_ ,” she said, her voice cracking. There was only so long she could walk them round in circles before Umbridge realised what she was doing. She didn’t know what to _do_. There was no doubt in her mind that Umbridge would try to kill Harry here, and it would be all their fault.

But she couldn’t let that happen. Hermione stopped abruptly, turning to face them. She caught Harry’s eye, letting him see the guilt, the fear, the determination. The question.

“What is this?” Umbridge was asking, head twisting back and forth as she tried to see something, anything. She jabbed her wand into Harry’s neck, and Hermione could imagine the perfectly circular bruise it would leave behind. He wasn’t looking at Umbridge though. His eyes were still fixed on Hermione. Imperceptibly, he nodded.

“This is it, professor,” Harry said, his voice hollow. “Cover your ears.”

“Cover my-”

But it was too late. Ron and Hermione knew to cover their ears and squeeze their eyes shut so they wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t see. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would stop the worst of the pain, the compulsion Harry could thread through the lights that burst from his body. Hermione could still hear though. She owed it to Harry not to ignore this. Not to ignore the slick sound of skin sliding away, the splintering of bone, the ground-shaking thud as his front paws hit the ground. The clicking sound - echolocation, she knew. That at least, they’d found information about. Whales and clicks and frequencies so low humans could only hear it under water. So loud it could burst eardrums, paralyse instantly. Not that Harry needed his clicks to paralyse. If the electric burn of his lights wasn’t enough, or the teeth and claws longer than her torso, there was the compulsion. The thrall. _Like imperious,_ Ron had whispered to her once, then swallowed hard and gone quiet for the rest of the evening.

He was right, though, and that must have been what Harry did with Umbridge, because she had gone quiet so quickly; gone from screaming with anger, then fear, then _quiet_. And it was enough. It should have been enough. But Harry was angry and scared and Hermione could smell blood in the air. Umbridge was quiet, but there were other sounds. Wet. Crunching. Snapping. To her side, Ron gagged, swallowed. They waited.

Then: a human whimper. Hermione opened her eyes finally, facing her guilt and sorrow and horror all at once- facing Harry. Desolate and blood soaked.

“I can,” he stuttered, “I can taste her.”

Hermione made the decision then, Ron not long after her, and they both rushed to him, helped hold him up, let him cry and shake between them and all Hermione could do was say, “ _I’m sorry,_ _I’m sorry, never again, I’ll never ask again, I’m sorry Harry. I’m sorry.”_

 _Never again,_ she promised herself. She would make sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know this is not a week later. Updates will be weekly from _now_. 
> 
> If you want a reference for what Harry looks like when transformed, I'm not good at art but I made a reference image for myself you can look at [here.](https://lightandholding.tumblr.com/post/640959682598633472/harry-was-a-shambling-thing-made-from-broken) :) Appreciate any comments, I am strangely nervous about posting this fic!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A memory hit him, sudden. Blue lights in a dark room. A rumbling ache in his chest and a strange need, desire with a strength that he wasn’t used to stirring inside him. But then the room had lit up and there had been a boy - practising my patronus, he’d said. Tom poked at the memory, concerned about how misty it was, how he had never even noticed. If it was someone else he would have assumed it was the work of a badly executed obliviate. But no, he was confident he would have taken care of an adversary before they could ever attempt to obliviate him. And the boy in the room, he’d been - a fourth year? Short, glasses. And, ah - yes. The scars.
> 
> Harry Potter. It seemed Tom had been wrong about him after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a week, right? 
> 
> Anyway, I listened to Better Run - Nasty Cherry while writing this one.

_“A pod of whales like obelisks … Schnoller could feel the clicks_

_penetrating his flesh and vibrating through his bones,_

_his chest cavity … like communication from another planet.”_

-Deep, James Nestor

November 2011

Harry

“I mean, it’s only a start, there’s so much more to do, but it’s still promising that the ministry is actually taking this seriously. Anyway, what about you Harry, how are things with you?”

“What?” Harry ran back over what Hermione had said, realised he had missed the last half of their conversation. In his defence he was tired and the intricacies of Hermione’s job at the ministry were a bit beyond him. Especially after dinner, when Ron had made enough food to feed an army. Hermione was smiling like she knew all that though.

“How’s work?” She asked, “have you found anything yet?”

“I think he’d tell us if he had Hermione. Your bosses are treating you okay though? Not working you too hard? Ron asked, grinning.

Harry rolled his eyes. “No, I haven’t been able to find anything. I do actually work though Ron. Ursa and Felia are lovely, but they’re the only archive of their kind, so they take on a lot of work. Way more than they should, really, but there’s no one else offering, so.”

“Alright alright,” Ron said, eyes creased with laughter, “I get it, you actually do work. Gotta admit though, every time I’ve popped by the bulk of your work load seems to involve hiding behind the front desk and reading.”

“Yeah, the bookshop doesn’t get many customers,” Harry agreed, “so sometimes they just give me books to read so I can figure out if there’s any important information in them. They’re working non-stop though, in the back. I wish they’d let me help them more, but Ursa keeps telling me I have to _work my way up_.”

“Up what?” Ron asked, “you can’t really work your way up a ladder when there’s only one rung above you.”

“That’s really not how it works Ron,” Hermione cut in, “she’s probably referring to the actual training involved. You can’t just fail upward into a career like that. Harry’s lucky he even got the job in the bookshop. This might be the only way we can get more information about the transformation.”

They all sobered at that. It was true, though. It had been a stroke of luck that had Harry getting to work at _The Archive of Magical Creatures & Related Ephemera_, a happy coincidence that was Ron’s dad overhearing about a job going and passing on the information to Ron, who had then told Harry. And it wasn’t like Harry had anything else in mind. He’d been dithering, biding his time after graduating Hogwarts, trying to figure out what to do with himself. He’d been of half a mind to go travelling on his own, try to find answers that way. But in the end the job had come before he’d come to any real decision, and Ursa and Felia had sent an owl confirming they’d take him on about an hour after his interview.

It wasn’t anything special, and Ron was right - it was pretty quiet sometimes, especially since he wasn’t allowed to help out with the archive yet, just man the bookshop it was attached to. But Ursa and Felia were kind, and it really was the closest they’d got to the possibility of finding more information about what Harry was in years. Ron had gone into the same department as his dad at the ministry, and muggle artefacts weren’t of much use to them, research-wise. Hermione was working in house elf relocation in the department for the regulation and control of magical creatures, which might allow her to get answers someday, but for now she was focused on her actual job and fighting for the rights of house elves.

“Anyway,” Hermione said, leaning back in her chair to grab some books that were piled up on the counter behind her. There were three, and each one had a variety of neon bookmarks stuck between their pages. “I’ve been reading some muggle books about sea creatures, and it’s interesting, really. There’s a lot of overlap between you and the animals that live in the deepest bits of the ocean. The glowing, for a start.”

“Not magical then?” Ron asked, peering at the books over Hermione’s shoulder as she leafed through them. As much as he complained about working under his dad, he really had taken after him when it came to fascination with muggle things.

“No, or well, it could be. But not every characteristic magical creatures have comes from magic, right? Some of it is just biology like any non-magical creature. So, see, here,” she pointed to a page in the book, a still image of the ugliest fish Harry had ever seen in his life, with huge teeth and a glowing blue light that hung in front of its face. “In sea creatures like this, there’s a bunch of difference ways they can achieve bioluminescence. Once way is with a molecule called coelenterazine reacting with enzymes in their body. Not many animals actually _make_ coelenterazine though, they usually absorb it from the bioluminescent creatures they eat.”

“Like flamingos and shrimp,” Harry said.

“Or Grindylows and glow bugs,” Ron added.

“Exactly,” Hermione said, “but that doesn’t explain Harry’s uh-”

“Right. No, I haven’t been eating glow bugs in secret,” Harry said wryly. It had gotten easier talking about his _situation_ over the years with them, but sometimes they still got caught up when it came to the gory implications. Not that he blamed them. He still woke from dreams with the phantom taste of fresh blood in his mouth sometimes. The worst of it was that they weren’t always nightmares.

“Yeah,” Hermione said, pulling him from his thoughts. “so the other option is bacteria.” She pointed to the fish on the page, tapping the glowing lure that dangled in front of its awful face.

“Angler fish don’t produce those molecules. The bacteria that live on the esca - the lure, see, _they_ glow. Not the fish. It’s fascinating really, scientists think that up to ninety percent of sea creatures that live in the open ocean produce some kind of light. It makes sense, living somewhere where there isn’t any natural light.”

“So, what does that mean? That Harry - uh, the creature that attacked him came from the ocean?”

Hermione shook her head, closing the book and pulling out another. “No, I don’t think so. The shape is sort of like a bear, right? Not a sea creature. I think that wherever it came from, wherever it’s evolved, it did so with no light. Maybe we should look into cave systems in Montreal, actually,” she said, scribbling something on a stray leaf of paper. Harry watched her write, eyebrows furrowed. The explanations might have merit, but Harry wasn’t sure. There was something about the lights - the way he could infuse them with intention, force that hazy fog on someone to lure them closer. Make them forget, too. He kept away from humans when he transformed, but there had been a few instances over the years when he’d encountered animals as the monster, and they had responded exactly as Umbridge had. As Tom Riddle did, that one time. As _he_ had. Although his memory of the attack was patchy at best, he remembered that fog of contentment and curiosity.

“What do other animals use the lights for then, if they aren’t all predators?” Ron was asking when Harry tuned back into the conversation, squinting at the pictures Hermione was pointing out that looked more like photos of the night sky than any single creature.

“Besides luring prey, it’s mostly camouflage,” Hermione said, “or attracting mates.”

“Well, we all know what Harry’s is for,” Ron said, and Harry grimaced. It would have been easier if his lights _were_ for the alternative, not that they’d ever be used for that. Gross.

“Well, anyway. Their mechanics might be biology, I’m still not sure. But the lure is definitely magic. Which means that there _should_ be something somewhere about them, but I’ve still not been able to find anything in any magic books. The closest I’ve gotten was this,” Hermione said, opening up the last book: _A Guide to Medieval Sorcery_. “I’m not even sure it has anything to do with you, Harry, but here, there’s a recipe for a potion to ‘eliminate the thrall of the deep’. I double checked _Dreadful Denizens of the Deep_ again, just in case, but couldn’t find any references.”

“So it could be something, could also be nothing at all. There’s no way I’m letting you guys test the potion, anyway. It’s too dangerous.” Ron looked like he was going to argue, but Hermione smacked him on the arm indignantly.

“ _No_ , Ronald. Do you really think I’d suggest consuming a medieval potion we don’t actually know the effects of, _merlin_. How you haven’t gotten yourself killed yet is beyond me.” Ron stared at Harry for a second, wide-eyed, before they both burst into laughter. After a moment, Hermione joined in, and it felt good, to be with them like this. Living together in a flat, having their friendship, their support.

Hermione was right, though. There wasn’t any way they could test the potions effects. No way to know if it had anything to do with Harry at all. They were no further than they had ever been really, not even with Hermione’s access at the ministry and Harry’s work at the archive. A dead end.

Tom

Tom enjoyed research. He enjoyed knowing things. It hadn’t taken long for him to find out about horcruxes, and it was tempting, but there was so much information in the world he hadn’t yet come across. He was patient, and if there was a way to achieve immortality without splitting his soul, he would find it. He had time. So, research. There had been a number of job offers from various departments within the ministry after he graduated Hogwarts, but the research committee suited him best. He could make connections, work his way up towards the minister position whilst still being able to look into whatever he wanted.

Avery had seemed doubtful at first when Tom told him the job he’d accepted, but the convenient excuse of working in research allowed him to get his hands on whatever kinds of books and information he wanted. He probably could have found much of it in time anyway, but why go through all the effort to do so illegally when he could simply _ask_ and have it left at his desk in a neat pile for him to peruse at his pleasure? The catalogue of information available to employees within the research committee was extensive, and once you had the badge that said you could take out what you wanted, no one asked any questions.

Which was how he found the note. It was tucked into the dust jacket of an out of print book on the links between magical creatures and muggle fairy tales, easily overlooked. He couldn’t tell how old it was as there was no date, but the paper was browned with age.

__

_[Maureen,_

_I thought this book may be of use to you in your search. I was only able to skim through, so i’m not sure if there’s any mention of your beast made from glowing blue snakes, but there are quite a few rare or extinct creatures in there which makes me hopeful. If not, I at least hope you find some use in it._

_Good Luck, J.V]_

Tom read the note through once, twice. _Beast made from glowing blue snakes_. Why did that seem familiar? He’d never heard of such a creature before. Tom flipped through the book, noting the illustrations and magical creature names as he did, but none of them were described as glowing snakes - the writer of the note obviously hadn’t looked at the book too closely. He closed it after a moment, carefully setting the note on top of it, thinking. _Why_ was it familiar to him? His memory was perfect, his recall impeccable, but still, it escaped him.

He tried to think about it logically, but mentally sorting through the various creature books he’d read was of no help, neither was any of the books about parseltongue magic or Salazar Slytherin. _Snakes that glowed blue._ Perhaps it hadn’t been a creature at all that this person had been looking for, but a spell? What would have produced a glowing blue snake, except - _oh._

A memory hit him, sudden. Blue lights in a dark room. A rumbling ache in his chest and a strange need, _desire_ with a strength that he wasn’t used to stirring inside him. But then the room had lit up and there had been a boy - _practising my patronus_ , he’d said. Tom poked at the memory, concerned about how misty it was, how he had never even noticed. If it was someone else he would have assumed it was the work of a badly executed _obliviate_. But no, he was confident he would have taken care of an adversary before they could ever attempt to obliviate him. And the boy in the room, he’d been - a fourth year? Short, glasses. And, ah - yes. The scars.

Harry Potter. It seemed Tom had been wrong about him after all.

Harry

Already exhausted from a late night and an earlier morning, Harry stumbled blearily through the visitors entrance of the ministry with a too-hot coffee in one hand and a rolled up map of Cornish Pixie nest locations in the other. Dymphna Furmage’s great granddaughter had stopped by the archive with a trunk full of information on the pixies that Dymphna had cultivated over the years, and the ministry wanted to look at the map. Ursa had owled him late the night previous, informing him that something urgent with a stakeholder had come up, so if it wasn’t too much trouble could he bring the map to the ministry instead?

Harry didn’t mind really, but he wasn’t exactly a morning person and the meeting was set for 8:30, a time wherein Harry was usually still sleeping. He shuffled through the ministry atrium, absent-mindedly sipping his coffee and burning his tongue for the third time that morning. He sighed, staring down at it balefully. He’d always been liable to pack too much power into heating charms, but this was ridiculous. Maybe he could leave it at the front desk and pick it up later? Or, maybe not, the witches at the front desk didn’t look particularly welcoming. Harry beelined around them and made his way to the elevators, happy to note that there was a board with the different departments and their levels listed on the wall. Well, that made things easier at least.

He took the elevator to the department for the regulation and control of magical creatures, slipping past the other witches and wizards and into a hallway with about a hundred doors attached to it. Harry tried to recall the name of the man he was meant to be meeting with, or if he’d been told a door number. Or general location. A trickle of heat pooled in the cavity of his chest as he stared around the room, thinking about how disappointed Ursa and Felia would be if the first bit of responsibility they’d given Harry ended up with him half-asleep and somehow lost within the ministry building. _Don’t be an idiot,_ he told himself, told the little trickle that always wanted to become a fire when his heart rate even slightly went up. He was pretty good at ignoring it now though.

He just had to ask someone was all. Admit that he wasn’t quite sure who he was meeting, but there was probably a pixie expert or room that they could direct him to. Harry peered around, trying to figure out who looked the least like they’d tell him to bugger off, when suddenly there was a voice behind him. A lovely, smooth voice.

“Potter, right?” A lovely smooth voice, and a lovelier face; Harry turned around and found himself face to face with Tom Riddle.

“Oh,” said Harry. Tom smiled warmly. The perfect curl of his hair could probably be described via the golden ratio.

“Tom Riddle,” he said, offering his hand before noticing Harry’s were occupied, “we were at Hogwarts together.”

His heart offered a dull _thud_ at the memory. Harry remembered the incident now, what a close call it had been. But Tom _hadn’t_ found out, Harry made sure of it. If he had, Harry certainly wouldn’t be here right now.

“I don’t think we ever interacted, but I don’t forget a face,” Tom continued, and for a second he simply looked at Harry, appraising. Taking in the scars, not with pity but something like curiosity. Harry shuffled uncomfortably, never a fan of scrutiny, but then Tom said, “I heard that you’re here for Morgnus? He’s in charge of all the pixie business. Come on, I’ll show you to his room.”

On the way, Tom explained to Harry about Furmage’s request for all Cornish pixies to be exterminated in the 17th century. The map of the pixie’s nests, if accurate, was probably her own doing, not that she ever got to put it to use. Of course, Harry had known this already, but didn’t really have the heart to tell Tom that.

“I think the ministry likely wants to keep hold of the map in case anyone else with a pixie grudge decides they want to pick up where she left off,” Tom said, leading Harry to a doorway about forty feet down the hallway, marked with a sign that read _Morgnus Pilferus - Pixie Business._

“Oh, right. Well, thanks then,” Harry said. Tom inclined his head, his smile small but - distracting.

“My pleasure. I hope to see you around, Harry Potter.”

Harry took a sip of his coffee as he watched Tom leave, then grimaced. Stone cold. 

Hermione

“Well, I didn’t expect to see you again so _soon,_ Harry.”

The startled look on Harry’s face would have been funny, if the cause hadn’t been _Tom Riddle_ appearing out of nowhere to crash their lunch. Harry had mentioned that he was going to be at the ministry and so she had invited him to lunch with her and Ron in the dining hall for ministry employees. The food wasn’t anything special, but it was a novelty to be able to spend lunch with him like they hadn’t done since Hogwarts, really. They made an effort to all have dinner together, but it was with a sort of fond nostalgia that she had spotted Harry and Ron together in the dining hall and joined them, catching up on their days with each other, gossiping about nothing in particular.

That was, until Tom Riddle invited himself over to say hello. Hermione didn’t really know him from school, only that his academic record was on par with hers, and his well-liked reputation across all of the houses impressive. She’d dealt with him a few times since working at the ministry, though, and while he’d always been pleasant enough there was something about him that put her on edge. A sense of insincerity, perhaps, barely perceptible. But Hermione was well used to insincere pleasantries; it came with being both accomplished and muggleborn, so she was likely more attuned to it than most people. And there was something about Tom Riddle that just felt _false_. Still, his record was clean, and his opinions remarkably forward-thinking -if a little luke-warm when it came to intention to back it up- so he wasn’t exactly high on her list of ‘weird and off-putting ministry workers to keep an eye on’.

Well, he hadn’t been until _now_. Harry had gone awkward and almost flushed the second he noticed Tom hovering over their table, and Hermione was suddenly grateful he hadn’t been drinking anything, because she’d seen this look once before and she remembered what happened last time. Harry’s lack of response didn’t seem to bother Tom, though. He gestured to the spare seat at their table with his tray of food.

“Would it be rude of me to ask to join you? I did enjoy our conversation earlier, and since you’re here I thought we could continue it.” Hermione made an effort not to roll her eyes. Merlin, he was laying it on thick. She glanced at Ron, hoping to catch his eye and share a commiserating look at the painfully obvious flirting that Harry was still liable not to notice, but Ron was too busy squinting at Riddle, suspicious. Well then, at least she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t swayed by Riddle’s charm - she’d have to talk to him about it later.

In the meantime, Riddle had taken Harry’s grunt as an indicator that he could join their table, never mind her and Ron’s silence on the matter. He slid into his seat with the exact poise and gracefulness that had started a thousand veela rumours at Hogwarts, and proceeded to employ some absolutely devastatingly pleasant small talk. Hermione wasn’t sure when exactly they had met, because Harry - typically - hadn’t mentioned it, but she gathered it had been before Harry’s meeting that morning. She wanted to click her tongue in sympathy. Harry truly was not at his best in the morning, she couldn’t blame him for being bowled over by that level of charm, fake or not. Absolutely defenceless.

“And I’m _so_ glad the archive was able to get a hold of that map, god forbid anyone use it to exterminate the pixie nests themselves. They get such an awful reputation, but truly I think that’s the fault of us wizards and witches venturing into their territory without knowing, and reaping the consequences,” he paused long enough to take another bite of his lunch, half turning his head to keep up the pretence that he was talking to all of them rather than just Harry, adding “I know I wouldn’t hesitate to defend myself if someone I didn’t know entered my home, I don’t see why it should be different for magical creatures.”

And the thing was, he had a _point_. Hermione had probably said the same thing word for word a hundred times about a hundred different magical creatures, and she didn’t even think he was lying when he defended them. But there was still a falseness to him, an intensity that spoke of very specific intentions. She just couldn’t quite figure out if she should be protecting Harry from those intentions or not. Was Riddle pulling out all the stops because he had an interest in dating Harry? Or did he want to take Harry to bed just for the thrill of it? It wouldn’t be the first time; she’d heard the girls at school talk about how _strangely_ _handsome_ he was sometimes, _how interesting._ Wondering how far down the scars went.

Needless to say, it was a good thing Harry was all but entirely oblivious to advances on his person, because it had likely saved him a lot of heartbreak. The few times he _had_ experienced it were bad enough. He confessed to her once of a girl that had gone pale and awkward when she’d seen the full extent of his scars beneath his clothing, which was bad enough. And then the fallout with Cho - Hermione had spent a lot of time trying to convince him that there wasn’t some inherent monstrousness within his personality that had turned her off him. He was liable to blame himself for anything bad that came his way, as if he deserved it, and Hermione didn’t want this to end that way. But Harry was an adult. He could make his own choices - _should_ make his own choices. Hermione would never take that option from him again. But if Riddle showed even a _hint_ that his intentions were anything other than completely genuine she would warn Harry at the very least.

She spent the rest of their lunch trying to find a crack in Riddle’s facade, but there was nothing. He asked after their respective jobs and projects and lives as if he was genuinely interested, offering only the barest of information about his own, monopolising both the conversation and Harry’s attention entirely. And then lunch was over, and he was leaving them with a polite goodbye and a smile in Harry’s direction that was admittedly captivating, if you liked that sort of thing. Pretty wasn’t high on Hermione’s list of desirable qualities, but she wasn’t blind. The full force of that kind of smile was probably half the reason Riddle had gotten as far as he had. Harry, making a valiant effort not to behave like a fool, only muttered a flustered _bye_ in response.

Hermione began to gather up her things - they had about five minutes before they would have to part ways, and she fully intended to keep her thoughts to herself at least until dinner, but Ron apparently had no such qualms.

“There’s something not right about that guy,” he said, frowning at Tom’s back. “All the girls were falling over themselves for him at school, but I don’t get it, I swear he’s dead behind the eyes. You’ve worked with him before Hermione, you’d know.”

“Um, well, he’s certainly got ambition,” Hermione said lightly. Trust Ron to be perceptive enough to notice something was off about Riddle, but _not_ notice the fact that he’d spent their entire lunch flirting shamelessly with Harry. Or that Harry had absolutely been falling over himself for him.

“Why’d he want to join us anyway? I’ve never even spoken to him, and you two met this morning. Poor guy probably doesn’t have any friends.”

For his part, Harry was frowning, his shoulders hiking up like they did whenever he got defensive. “I mean, I guess,” he said, running a hand through his already hopelessly mussed hair, “but I don’t think he’s a bad bloke.”

Hermione hoped, for his sake, that he was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry, before 9am: i have one brain cell and it's being used to move my coffee from my hand to my mouth.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tom wants answers, and Harry just wants to get through winter in one piece. 
> 
> _Tom wasn’t without emotions. He knew what anger and happiness and fear felt like, but equally he knew that he didn’t feel them like other people did. If everyone else held emotions within them like huge bodies of water, Tom’s own were like droplets in a dessert. Hard found, easily lost. Fleeting. The desire he’d experienced when he saw the blue lights felt like a revelation. A flood gifted to a man who hadn’t known he was dying of thirst. He couldn’t feel it as he had then, but now that the memory had resurfaced he could remember it. Could remember the swell of emotion in his chest, a sharp ache like a broken rib._
> 
> _He knew the feeling was a lie. He wanted it again anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to Spooky - Dusty Springfield writing this chapter.
> 
> Content warning for negative thoughts about scars etc.

_“If all the electricity in a person’s body could be harnessed and converted to light_

_[it] would be sixty thousand times brighter than a comparable mass of the sun._

_Pound for pound, you could be brighter than the brightest star in the solar system.”_

_-_ Deep, James Nestor

November 2011

Tom

Tom had hoped he would be able to sense _something_ from Potter, but their initial interactions had been functionally useless. There was nothing, no power, no strangeness to the way he moved his body, no mask in place to hide a monster within. No signs at all besides the obvious scars on his face, and even those he somehow managed to make look normal, mundane. They fit the contours of his face; jagged lines disappearing into his hairline, past his temple and across the place where the top half of his left ear should have been, curved around his jaw and cheek in the facsimile of a dimple. There were more at his neck, disappearing beneath his shirt collar.

They certainly stood out at first, but Harry had an uncanny knack for disappearing into himself, and taking anything remarkable about him with it. As far as anyone was concerned, he was simply the very lucky victim of a werewolf attack. The marks _looked_ like they’d been caused by a wolf. And Tom would have continued thinking so if it hadn’t been for the scar he’d seen on the back of Harry’s wrist that morning. Pure luck, really, that Harry’s sleeve had been pulled up as he adjusted his hold on the map.

It was a slither of a scar, thinner than the marks on his face and neck, and it _could_ have been a claw mark, if not for the perfect curl it made around his wrist. As if something had wrapped itself around his arm. He could recall seeing pictures of burns left by jellyfish in the past, and they had looked remarkably similar. Tom tried again to remember what he’d seen in that dark room back at Hogwarts, but it was still frustratingly blurry. He could only picture the glowing snakes writhing and twisting through the darkness towards him, and whatever spell or magic that had warped his memory was also insisting that it was just a patronus that he had seen, but Tom’s will was strong, and he _knew_ now that the thought was false. The split second of animal desire that had overcome him when he’d seen them, thoughtless and _wanting_ was enough to make him sure of that.

Tom wasn’t without emotions. He knew what anger and happiness and fear felt like, but equally he knew that he didn’t feel them like other people did. If everyone else held emotions within them like huge bodies of water, Tom’s own were like droplets in a dessert. Hard found, easily lost. Fleeting. The desire he’d experienced when he saw the blue lights felt like a revelation. A flood gifted to a man who hadn’t known he was dying of thirst. He couldn’t feel it as he had then, but now that the memory had resurfaced he could _remember_ it. Could remember the swell of emotion in his chest, a sharp ache like a broken rib.

He knew the feeling was a lie. He wanted it again anyway. He wanted the power in the knowledge of what he’d seen, wanted the possibility of magic it might hold, the protection it may offer. But he could admit to himself, grudgingly, that he wanted that feeling again. If he could find some way to harness whatever power was in the lights, perhaps he could - well. It was no use dwelling on what he _could_ do when he didn’t even know what the lights were. If they were part of Harry or some creature he had power over. He would have to do more research first. Perhaps research that would take him to _The Archive of Magical Creatures and Related Ephemera._

Harry

They were barely a few months in and Harry was already well and truly done with winter. He woke up as the sun was rising in the sky, weak and watery light filtering in through a crack between his curtains. Opening them didn’t offer much more visibility, only an eerie grey-orange sheen reflecting off of the snow that had fallen overnight. Not more than a couple of inches, thankfully, but it wasn’t the snow so much as the cold that Harry detested. It felt like every movement of his body was an effort in the winter, every joint swollen and clicking, every muscle tight and achy. Years of snapping his body apart and back together had done a number on him before he’d even realised it.

It wasn’t so bad in the other seasons, but winter made him keenly aware of all the ways in which his body was no longer his own. Getting out of bed took a while, and getting washed and clothed even longer. The shower at least could offer hot water, but the loss after was often worse than the lack before. He managed it, though, shuffling from the bathroom and back into his room to get dressed. He avoided the mirror on mornings like this, too keenly aware of his body already to be able to handle the sight of it, too. It wasn’t that he thought his scars were ugly. Objectively his face was relatively unmarred, if you didn’t count the ear. But his body, his back was something else. The gnarled mess of scar tissue _was_ ugly, in its purest definition. There was a horror that came with the sight, Harry knew. You looked at his face and you could pretend the attack wasn’t all that bad, but the sight of his body was a stark reminder. It forced people to think about what happened to him, actually imagine it.

And no one wanted to do that, least of all Harry. Not when it was winter, and he was cold, and every movement was a painful reminder anyway. So he kept his eyes averted when he walked past the mirror in the hallway. He sat down to get dressed. He pulled one of Mrs Weasley’s softest gifted jumpers over the shirt he was already wearing, thankful not for the first time for her love of knitting. Then he shuffled down the hallway and into the kitchen, breathing out a sigh of relief when a mug of coffee was immediately put in his hands.

“You’re an angel, Hermione.”

“I know,” she said, turning back to the porridge she was making. Harry slipped into a chair at their dining table, stifling a groan.

“Ron?” he asked.

“Mr Weasley called him in early. Something about a Nokia phone that started ringing in the middle of the night,” she said, “porridge?”

Harry thought about resisting, since she clearly hadn’t made enough for two people, but the idea of actually making himself breakfast felt about as achievable as climbing a mountain.

“Please,” he said, only feeling a little bit guilty. He’d learnt his lesson about accepting help manifold over the years. Still, when Hermione offered to side-along apparate him to the archive he politely declined.

“It’s not that bad, Hermione. If I wasn’t capable of apparating I wouldn’t be going into work.”

She bit her lip, looking doubtful, but didn’t argue. “I just wish we could do something to help with the pain. I still think if you just asked Remus-”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Harry said, “and you know that if I asked then he would have questions that I can’t answer.”

“But Remus of all people would understand if you just-”

“Please don’t Hermione. Not - I know you mean well, but please,” he said, plaintive, “If we can’t find anything in the next few years I’ll think about it, but. Not yet. I _can’t_.”

“God, sorry Harry,” she said, reaching a hand across the dining table to grip his own, “I’m sorry, you’re right. I won’t bring it up again.”

He gripped her hand back. He _wasn’t_ right, really, at least not when it came to Remus. But even though it had been years now, and the transformation felt as natural as his human body did, he still wasn’t ready. Not for the questions, the pity, or the fear he knew would come when he told his family. No, if he was ever going to tell them, he wanted answers first.

*

Since the meeting at the ministry had gone well, Ursa and Felia had started giving him more responsibilities within the archive. Only little things for now, but it was nice to feel like they trusted him with their life’s work. Ursa had handed over a box of old newspaper and leaflet clippings that morning, a recent acquisition from an elderly wizard clearing out his attic, and asked him to sort through for anything of relevance to them. Apparently the man had collected clippings of all sorts of things that interested him, but magical creatures especially so.

He was leaning against the bookshop counter and reading a fifty year old article about a rare genus of flesh-eating Bundimun when the wind chimes over the front door jangled, letting him know a customer had entered. He couldn’t quite see the front door from behind the counter, hidden a little behind one of the many bookshelves crammed into the small space, so he didn’t bother doing anything more than call out a quiet _morning_ , before going back to reading. The customer would find their way over eventually.

He didn’t have to wait long. The customer appeared around the bookshelf marked _legless and or armless types,_ sidestepping Harry’s haphazard piles of clippings - Ursa’s methods of organisation were pretty similar to Harry’s own - and coughed gently. Harry looked up.

“Oh no.”

“Good morning Harry,” Tom Riddle said, genial as ever. Unruffled by the cold winds outside; his outerwear looked expensive and warm, his hair dishevelled in such a way that suggested intention, rather than the windswept mess Harry was dealing with. The only sign he’d just been outside in what was looking like a veritable blizzard was the way his cheeks and nose were a gentle pink. Harry wondered for a second if that was intentional, too.

“Ah, sorry,” he said, straightening up from his position leaning over the counter with a wince. “What can I help you with Mr Riddle?”

“Please, it’s Tom. And I wish I could say I was only here for good conversation, but unfortunately it’s ministry business,” he said. Harry wanted to roll his eyes at ‘good conversation’, because as far as their two other interactions had gone, there had been less conversation and more Tom carefully prying one-word answers out of Harry while Harry inwardly panicked under the full force of his attention. 

“Um, what is it you needed then? I can help out with some stuff, but it might be more helpful for me to get Felia if it’s important.”

“No, no not all that important. I’m just here for some research. Anything on folklore and rare magical creatures, really,” Tom said, smiling wryly, “I know it’s a broad scope, but I’m more than happy to make multiple visits.”

“That’s fine, honestly we’ve had people come in and ask for ‘information about magical creatures’ before, so it could be worse,” Harry said, then had to pause and stare when Tom let out a surprised laugh. Merlin, did _everything_ about him have to be perfect? Harry wanted to feel self-conscious in his knitted jumper and his tired, aching body, but honestly he really was too exhausted to care. Winter made him more aware of his body, and that in turn made his nightmares worse. _Tom_ probably wasn’t lying awake half the night after a dream about committing murder. He couldn’t be, looking as he did; with a skin tone like that you’d see dark eye circles from half a mile away.

“Right,” Harry said awkwardly, “Uh, right. Come on then, I’ll show you to the research room.” Tom followed him through the back of the bookstore and into the archive, where Ursa and Felia were having a heated discussion about the virtues of physical versus magical storage methods for the older records in their catalogue. It was a fairly regular argument, and they had been at it all morning.

“Sorry to interrupt - I’ve got a, um, Tom Riddle here who wants to access some records in the research room if that’s alright? He’s from the ministry.”

“Oh, sorry sweetheart, don’t mind us,” Ursa said, rising with only a little difficulty from the chair she’d been sitting on to shake Tom’s hand. “I’m Ursa Selantis, this is my dear wife Felia. The ministry, you say?” Felia didn’t rise to shake Tom’s hand, but she rarely interacted with customers anyway. She squinted at Tom over her pointed reading glasses, forming all sorts of questions Harry was sure she’d accost him with later.

“Yes, the research committee,” Tom was saying, “I can’t really go into specifics about what I’m working on, but if it’s not too much trouble I’d really appreciate the use of your research room.”

“Oh, no trouble at all,” Ursa said, grinning at Tom in a way that made Harry worried, “Harry can help you with that, me and Felia can deal with the bookshop for now. Don’t forget to get him to sign in Harry.”

“Of course,” Harry said, increasingly certain he was going to get thoroughly interrogated the second Tom had left. “Right, the research room is this way. I hope you aren’t claustrophobic.”

*

The research room was less a room so much as a nook, positioned halfway down the staircase that led to the basement where all the records were kept. The doorway was small enough that Tom had to duck slightly to get through it. The room itself was barely bigger than a king-sized bed, with only a small desk and a cupboard for storing bags and the like. Harry gestured at the desk and the sign-in book open on top of it.

“So if you sign that and wait here I can get you some stuff to start you off. Folklore and rare magical beasts, right? Rare as in not easy to find or rare as in not well known?”

“Rare as in…” Tom trailed off, and suddenly Harry was keenly aware of how close they were standing. How heavy the air in the room felt, and the weight of Tom’s gaze as he took in Harry’s jumper, his hunched shoulders, his face. Harry’s back ached when he tensed his muscles to fight a shiver.

“Rare as in glowing,” Tom said finally, speaking carefully, his eyes focused so intensely on Harry’s own Harry thought he’d look right through him. “Glowing blue snakes, with the power to affect one’s emotions, to change or remove memories. Have you heard of anything like that?”

Harry’s breath caught. The smile on Tom’s face was no longer charming, or gentle. It was knowing. It was smug. How did he _know?_

“I- I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Harry said, his heartbeat picking up, a fire bursting to life inside him.

“I think you do,” Tom replied, leaning in close enough that Harry could hear his breath hitching, _excited._ “Because I remember that day, Harry Potter. I remember what I saw in that room, how it made me feel. The _patronus_ ,” he hissed, eyes alight with a kind of fierceness that was both anger and thrill. “You told me you were practising your patronus, but I know better than that, now. I know you-”

Scared that their voices could be heard upstairs, Harry interrupted him by grabbing his elbow and pulling him down the last of the stairs and into the basement, slamming the door behind him. For a moment, there was only darkness and their breathing. Then Harry’s eyes adjusted to the dark, the single lamp by the door illuminating Tom - calm still, but with his wand in his hand. Harry wasn’t really afraid of him. Not of being hurt by him, at least, but he was afraid of Tom telling people what he knew.

“What is your _problem_?” Harry demanded.

“ _My_ problem? You’re the one that accosted me and dragged me into this basement. Need I mind you that you’re also the one that used illegal memory magic on me? I’ll forgive you for doing that if you just tell me what you are.”

“I’m _nothing_ ,” Harry insisted. Tom’s eyes flashed, and suddenly he had Harry pressed up against the wall.

“Don’t _lie_ to me.” The single light was casting strange shadows over him, sharpening the angles of his face. He looked dangerous. Harry’s heart was rattling and creaking in his chest, and he couldn’t help but think how easy it would be to transform. To solve this problem before it started. It had been so easy with Umbridge, with anger and fear splicing him open. With the gift of a body that could bear the toll. So, so easy to slip off his flesh and crack open his ribs and - _no_. Harry lifted his chin.

“No. I don’t know what you think you know, but you’re wrong.” He said, expecting anger. Frustration. But instead Tom just looked and looked at him, scanning the contours of his face and his eyes and the scars that framed them. And then he stepped back, adjusting his clothes and running a hand through his hair.

“Well,” he said. “Terribly sorry about all that. I’ll go wait back in the research room, shall I?”

Wrongfooted, unsure what exactly had made Tom back off, Harry only nodded, watching as Tom moved around him to open the door to go back up the stairs. He turned back at the doorway however, his gaze piercing.

“If you’re worried about me telling anyone, don’t be,” he said, every inch of his soft smile a threat, “I don’t share.”

*

The moment they were sat around the table for dinner that night, Harry broke the news. “Well, I was wrong. He’s a git.”

“Sure,” Ron said amiably, “who?”

“Tom Riddle.”

Ron looked surprised. “Oh, well. Glad you’ve come around then. ‘Bout time you actually used your head.”

“I was using my head!”

“You were using something and it most certainly wasn’t your head,” Hermione said as she unboxed the take out they’d ordered, handing over the orange chicken with an unrepentant smirk. Ron paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Harry said quickly, tipping the last of the chicken onto his plate. “Anyway. Tom Riddle is awful and I was wrong and he uh, might know what I am. Sort of?”

Ron dropped his fork with a clatter. “ _What?”_

“Harry, how in the world does he know?”

Harry explained what had happened in the room of requirement all those years ago, how Tom had seemed to forget and Harry figured he was safe. But then with everything that had happened in the archive, it seemed as if he’d remembered, somehow. And he wanted something.

“It can’t be anything good. He’s as Slytherin as they get, and he’s definitely hiding something.”

Hermione tapped her finger against her chin, humming in agreement. “But what exactly is he hiding though? And why did he keep it to himself until now?”

Harry shook his head. “No, I think - I think it was new information. I don’t think he remembered until recently. He must have found something.”

“Well fuck,” Ron said. “We have to find out what it is he knows, then.”

“I agree. I can ask around at the ministry, see what he’s working on maybe? But we have to be careful, Harry. What if he tells someone?”

Harry sighed, running his hands through his hair and fighting the urge to tear it out. “No, I don’t think he’s going to tell anyone. He - he said he’d keep my secret. Said that he _doesn’t like to share_.”

“ _Ew_ , mate. Who says stuff like that?” 

Hermione coughed. “You’re probably right, though. If there’s one thing I remember about him from Hogwarts, it’s that he _loved_ to know things others didn’t. He doesn’t seem like the sort to just hand you over, not when there’s the possibility of having the knowledge to himself.”

“He also doesn’t seem like the sort to take no for an answer,” Ron grumbled.

Harry had the sinking feeling Ron was probably right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the girls are (about to be) fightingggggggg
> 
> Anyway. Thanks for reading my anti-winter pro-community archiving propaganda. I would appreciate any thoughts or comments you might have <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom has some wires crossed. The existence of plot is acknowledged. 
> 
> _Crack open his ribs_ , Harry thought. _Mine or yours?_ Tom wondered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter, just Tom's POV, but hopefully the break between this chapter and the next shouldn't be too long! I'd like to suggest a specific song for this chapter but in reality I've just been listening to that new Haley Williams album on repeat.
> 
> Also see end notes for a brief specific warning if you need.

_“Buried beneath the black ocean …_

_they’ve been there for millions of years,_

_just waiting for us to shine a light on them.”_

Deep, James Nestor

December 2011

Tom

Tom was at his desk, idly scanning the pages of a report he was meant to be editing, but his thoughts were preoccupied - as they had been for the past week. He had begun to worry that there wasn’t anything remarkable about Harry after all, but his visit to the archive had changed that. Harry looked the picture of non-threatening in the bookshop; swamped in a handmade sweater with a large H on it, squinting sleepily at one of the many newspaper clippings that were scattered around him, it made for a nice picture. Charming, in a way, although that was offset by the disappointment Tom felt in his presence. Tom could feel no power in him, sense no dangerous or dark magic, and it was infuriating. Whatever he was, whatever he had been doing in that dark room back at Hogwarts had _pulsed_ with power. But Tom could not find it here, looking at a tired bookshop worker who moved stiffly and slowly, old before his age.

It wasn’t threatening, but it was an indicator that all wasn’t as it seemed. The gingerness in his movements spoke of chronic pain, and although that might be attributed to the scars, Tom wasn’t sure. Still. He’d followed Harry into the backroom with a vague worry that this would all be for nothing. Ursa and Felia Selantis were nice enough, and although Felia hadn’t seemed charmed by him, he had faith that her wife’s warmth would sway her if he ever needed any favours. He didn’t know how long he’d be taking up space in their archive, but he needed to foster a relationship that would ensure he had the freedom he required. He could work on that at a later date, though. This visit had been for planting seeds, observing Harry in an environment that he was comfortable in, and perhaps start to narrow down information sources.

He hadn’t intended to provoke Harry. He certainly hadn’t intended to reveal so early on what he knew, but the man was _incredibly_ frustrating. The minuscule research room had them practically a hair's-breadth away from each other, but still there was _nothing_ , and suddenly Tom couldn’t stand not knowing. So he’d admitted what he wanted. What he already knew. And what a relief it had been, to see that he was right. Even without Tom’s natural talents, Harry was a remarkably bad liar. It was astonishing that no one else had found out about him, really.

Tom had allowed Harry to drag him down into the basement with curiosity, keenly aware of the warm hand around his wrist and the feeling of magic rising in the air. Palpable. Tom palmed his wand, ready if need be, but for that moment simply allowed himself to be pulled into the darkness. It was deja vu, in a way. For a moment Tom expected blue lights to appear, but it was only Harry stood in front of him.

Harry, breathing harshly, demanding to know what Tom’s problem was. Insisting, of all things, that he was _nothing._ It was foolish, and insulting. Tom wouldn’t have been so affected by nothing. He’d acted without thinking again, shoving Harry against the wall with a hiss. _Don’t lie to me_. That wasn’t the only reason he’d done it, though. As Harry got more worked up, Tom had _felt_ it. Something dangerous, too close. An animal fear stirred in his body, the hair on his arms and scalp prickling. His body sensed a threat when he didn’t even know what the threat was.

There was scant light in the basement room, only the flicker of a lantern by the reinforced door they’d come though. Getting closer to Harry had the benefit of bringing his eyes into focus. Bright, bright green, flickering with the lantern’s light. Pretty. His expression was scared, but his body was relaxed, at ease. That, if nothing else, spoke of power. But Tom wanted more. He wanted to know what that power was, how he could harness it. And so he had pushed his way into Harry’s mind, a quick and dirty _legilimens_ to gather as much information as he could.

It didn’t surprise him as much as it should have to come up against a wall of iron when he tried to delve into Harry’s memories. He pressed against the static, dug his fingers in and tried to pry open his mind to no avail. He realised quickly that he was wasting his time trying to break through, and instead allowed himself to pull back into the shallower parts of Harry’s mind, where he could catch glimpses of current thoughts. Still awash with blue static, sharp like wire wool, but there were flashes - _it would be so easy,_ Harry was thinking.

 _It had been so easy before_ , Harry thought, and Tom saw the face of Professor Umbridge, contorted in rage. Contorted in fear. Destroyed entirely by claws shining blue blue blue and

 _a body that could bear the toll_ , Harry thought, and there was the blurry shape of a monster, huge, shaking the ground it walked on, matching scars and glowing blue with electric lights and

 _crack open his ribs_ , Harry thought. _Mine or yours?_ Tom wondered. Not a memory, then, but a vision, a daydream: his own broken body beneath the weight of a great creature, his pale, bloodied face illuminated by the blue lights that hovered overhead. There was a deep echoing rattle within the creature’s chest that felt like satisfaction, and then Tom saw his own skull cleaved between the jaws and - _no_. The image faded, and Tom withdrew. _No_ , Harry had said, and it had been as much to himself as it had been to Tom, he knew. Resisting his own nature. Protesting Tom’s.

He stepped away from Harry on autopilot, told him he’d be waiting in the research room. Told him, unthinkingly, that he didn’t share. There were not many steps up to the room, but Tom took them two at a time anyway. He ducked his way inside, closing the door gently behind him. He’d probably have at least a few minutes before Harry came back with files for him. For a moment, Tom stood in the center of the room, letting his breathing even out. Taking stock of how he felt: fear, excitement, wonder. Arousal. Wires thoroughly crossed, he knew, but he couldn’t help the churning eagerness in him at that display of power. And he hadn’t even seen it for real - only a half memory and a daydream.

He _would_ see the creature that Harry became. One way or another, he’d bear witness to it, and he would have Harry’s power for his own. He adjusted his trousers. Forced his mind into calmness. Then he had sat down at the tiny desk and penned his name in the sign-in book.

*

Days later and Tom’s mind was still preoccupied. He didn’t like how thoughtlessly he’d acted back at the archive. Revealing so much to Harry in that time hadn’t endeared him to Tom in the least, let alone have him willing to work with him. Harry had been stilted and awkward for the rest of Tom’s visit, although he hadn’t kicked Tom out, which was something. Still, in order to see Harry transform, to have access to that power and the potential protection it would offer, Tom would have to go about gaining his trust. He’d need to make multiple visits to the archive to begin with, but he’d need to find an angle that would benefit Harry, too. What did Harry want? To be left alone, primarily, but what else? Were there side effects that could be helped? A cure that Tom could pretend to be looking for? Whatever it was, Tom would only find it if he could get Harry talking more. Which meant more visits to the archive.

Tom was drawn from his thoughts when Avery appeared at his door, mouth thin with irritation. “Hermione Granger has been snooping,” he said without preamble. Probably worried Tom would be annoyed enough to take it out on him.

“Does it seem like she knows anything?”

“Not really,” Avery admitted, “but she’s been asking about what projects the research committee is working on. She also asked about you specifically. Made it seem like she was just interested in anything that might be helpful to her, but what could we possibly be looking at that would be relevant to her and her little elves, I wouldn’t know.”

“Hmm. Nothing more than the initial questions?” Tom asked calmly.

“Not that we know of. I’ve told the others to keep alert to anything, but so far...” he shrugged, clearly unhappy. There wasn’t much they could do with a few questions from a witch well-known for having her fingers in every pie she could get her hands on. Especially if it was in any way related to the rights of magical creatures, beast or being, and Tom had certainly been spending a great deal of his time in that area. It could very well have been innocent, but Tom wasn’t naive.

Harry must have told her about Tom’s interest, the incident in the archive. It followed then that she probably knew what Harry was. Or had some inkling at least, for him to be confiding in her. Irritation swelled abruptly in his chest that someone else knew about Harry, but he calmed himself quickly. Harry had a family. He had a godfather that was a werewolf, if Tom’s preliminary digging was correct. They likely knew, too. Tom would not have Harry’s truth entirely for his own. Still, though, it wouldn’t do to have Granger getting in the way of his plans. He’d have to be subtle. Allow the pretence of flirtation to linger in any interactions he had with Harry that might be witnessed.

For a moment, he contemplated the idea of using Granger to get information on Harry, but just as quickly dismissed it. She’d never be charmed by him, and he’d never be able to use legilimens on her in public. No, focusing on Harry was important.

“Thank you Avery, for now we’ll have to leave her to it - everyone has been covering their tracks?” Not that anything his small group of followers were looking into was particularly damning at this point. The benefits of having them placed in a variety of positions throughout the ministry meant they could get away with looking into a great number of things separately of each other without any risk involved. His men were also laying the groundwork that would ultimately allow Tom to gain favour and rise to the level of minister within the decade. They would be his support, and his protection, if ever necessary. He was powerful, but he was not infallible; all it took was one dissident to slip something into a drink. Until he decided on the method he’d use to achieve immortality, until he became minister and achieved that final goal, it was only smart to have loyal followers that would protect him. Not that he would need them, if he had Harry. But Avery didn’t need to know that yet.

“As you requested. There’s nothing for her to find, but-”

“It’s fine," Tom interrupted him, "Good work Avery, but for now we’ll leave her to it. She’ll stick her nose in our work, but she’ll find nothing that interests her, and abandon her snooping. Now, you said last week that there was some potential for recruitment in your department?”

*

Tom was leaving his office a few days later when he bumped into Miss Granger, her hair wild as ever, her expression stern.

“I have a petition,” she said, clearly not interested in pleasantries. If she was trying to get information out of him, she wouldn’t get anywhere with that attitude.

“Miss Granger,” he said politely, taking the parchment she offered him and scanning it. Yet another request for the Wizengamot to get involved in some sort of House Elf business. There were not a great many signatures on the page. Tom signed it with a flourish, then handed it back to her. “I think your passion is admirable. I’m sure in time the Wizengamot will realise the reality of your cause.”

“Well, I should hope so,” she said stiffly, not quite surprised, but certainly not comfortable with Tom’s praise. He couldn’t discern if she’d actually intended to confront him about Harry or his research, or if she truly was just desperate enough to be wandering around the ministry in search of signatures. He _had_ expressed support for the Cornish pixies at the lunch they’d shared, so perhaps he truly was one of the only safe bets she could think of. How sad.

“Did you need anything else?” He asked. Then, because he couldn’t help himself: “I’m just heading to the _The Archive of Magical Creatures and Related Ephemera,_ so it may have to wait.”

Granger’s expression darkened swiftly, her voice tight. “Why do you need to go to the archive?”

“It seems they have some fascinating records that might be helpful for my current project,” Tom said lightly, beginning to button up his coat. “If that’s all?”

It was. Granger’s stony expression did not change as he left her in the hallway of the research department, approaching the elevator that would take him to the atrium. Once inside, he finally allowed the satisfaction he felt show on his face in a small, sharp smile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Content Warning for Tom's Brain Working Like That I guess; he sees the visual of some graphic violence enacted upon himself and is sort of turned on by it. It's more the power in the act than the specifics of gore, but figured it deserved a warning all the same.]
> 
> Poor Hermione. Tom's hierarchy of needs has begun its 180 from power/magic/knowledge into Harry/Harry/Harry. He's not gonna realise that for a while, though :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sure,” Maudry said slowly, “creatures with glowing tentacles that’d burn you alive, meaner’n Hungarian horntails an’ vicious as merpeople. Ain’t got a name, but my great aunt said they came from Death’s garden.”
> 
> “Death’s garden?” Harry asked. 
> 
> “The great beyond. Hell. Whatever you wanna call it. Don’t matter anyways,” she said, turning back to Tom. “The reason you ain’t gonna find anythin’ is ‘cause they don’t exist. It’s a folktale. A story told to keep kids inside at night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to Andrew Bird’s Sweep The Field writing the first part of this chapter, and for the final Harry POV bit A Lyke Wake Dirge by Matt Berninger/Andrew Bird. 
> 
> If you’re at all interested in the epigraphs, they all come from the same non-fiction book about the depths of the ocean and the many different ways humans have explored it. Somehow the like...emotional heart of this fic came from me reading that book. Fear and wonder and feelings too big to name in the face of something we don’t understand...yeah. Anyway, enjoy!

_“[The Whale click] sounds like a signal from another world,_

_which, in a way, is precisely what it is.”_

Deep, James Nestor

December 2012

Harry

Harry was both surprised and not, the next time Tom visited the archive. He’d thought - or perhaps hoped - that after their confrontation Tom might drop it, but even his limited experience with Tom suggested that that was a pipedream. Second-hand comments about him as a Hogwarts student all suggested that dog after a bone was an understatement, which was fantastic. Exactly what Harry needed.

He was busy with a customer when Tom came in through the front door of the bookshop, a frown already settling between his brows when he saw that Harry was busy. Like Harry should be free for his monopolisation at all times. _Fuck that entirely_ , Harry thought, turning his attention pointedly back to the customer in front of him. Ignoring Tom worked well enough for a while, since Harry really was busy with the old witch Maudry who was after some out of print books on merpeople. He was working through the list of books she had gathered for him through her research in the archive, and so Harry was copying down the titles and authors and publishing dates when he noticed Tom moving towards the backroom out of the corner of his eye.

“ _Oi,_ ” he called, irritation surpassing any wariness he may have felt towards Riddle. “Can you not read?” He gestured to the half dozen signs scattered around the archway that lead into the back room that read NO ENTRY UNLESS WITH A STAFF MEMBER. At first Harry had thought the amount of signs was excessive, but after working in the bookshop for a few months he quickly realised how little customers liked to pay attention to signs. Also how nosy they were. Tom might have had worse intentions than the usual customer, but it was basically the same thing.

“Ah,” Tom said, a brief flash of surprise then irritation passing across his face before sliding back into his mask of blank charm. “Apologies, I wasn’t paying attention. I suppose I’ll look around the shop while I wait for you to finish?” Harry rolled his eyes at the pointed way he addressed them, clearly hoping Maudry got the hint and hurried things up, but she was half deaf and would have ignored him even if she had heard. She wasn’t the timid sort.

“Sure,” Harry said sweetly, turning back to the parchment to note down the last of the books, taking his time about it. “I’ll be with you once I'm done here.” He watched Tom slink away behind a bookcase, looking for all the world like a cat that had been caught knocking over a plant pot. He turned back to Maudry, not hiding his grin.

“That everything for you Miss Ellis?”

She eyed him shrewdly. “New friend o’ yours?”

“Not really,” he said, well aware that Tom would be eavesdropping behind the bookcase. “Ministry business.” Maudry’s eyes narrowed even further, and she faked spitting on the ground in the direction Tom had gone.

“Dirty lot.”

“Hey now,” Harry protested halfheartedly, “you liked Hermione when you met her!” She had _really_ liked Hermione actually. Spent most of the hour they’d talked ignoring Ron and trying to persuade Hermione to intern with her at the sanctuary she ran for magical sea creatures. Hermione had been flattered, maybe even genuinely contemplated the offer, but ultimately her heart lay in making bigger changes from within the ministry.

“Means to an end, init?” Maudry said, still glaring in Tom’s direction. “She ain’t got the heart of a ministry worker an’ you know it. What’s a ministry boy doing over here anyway? You ain’t in money trouble are you?” If only it were money trouble. Harry offered her a weak smile, hoping it looked genuine.

“Nah, he’s just doing secret research things he’s not allowed to tell us about. He asks for boxes, I give him boxes. That’s about it. Ursa thinks it’s good - the ministry paying more attention to us.” That was semi-true. Ursa _did_ think working with the ministry was good for them, but Harry knew full well Tom being here wasn’t in any official capacity. Unless something like with the Pixies came up again, it was unlikely they’d be making a useful relationship with the ministry any time soon. Tom wouldn’t exactly be putting in any good words for them.

“‘Bout time they paid attention to the work you’re doing,” Maudry said, which Harry happily agreed with. Felia and Ursa had been working on the archive for almost fifty years now, with no recognition from anyone but the strange variety of researchers that came through their door. “Gonna talk to the ladies before I go, they wanna hear ‘bout the sprite babies. I’ll leave you an’ the pretty ministry boy to it, eh?”

Harry didn’t bother protesting as she slid past him and through the archway into the backroom. He listened to them talking for a moment, catching up with each other. Tom appeared in front of him.

“She seems nice.”

“She is,” Harry said, ignoring the sarcasm, “what do you want then?”

Harry regretted the words the second he said them, because it was a perfect opener for Tom’s answering, “ _you_.” Harry scoffed. Rolled his eyes and almost scoffed again, just to drive home how ridiculous a statement that was.

“Right, well. Currently unavailable. Can I help you with anything else?”

The corner of Tom’s mouth twitched, though Harry couldn’t tell if it wanted to go up or down. “You told Miss Granger about our chat last week,” he said, an abrupt non sequitur. Harry frowned.

“Well you never told me not to. Also I don’t need your permission to talk to my friends.” If Tom thought he had any say in who Harry talked to or what he told them, he would be dearly disappointed. The _arrogance_ , to think he could just waltz into Harry’s life and start making demands. “Is that all?”

Tom’s mouth did twitch downward then. His overly polite tone belied his obvious irritation when he replied, “no. I came to use the research room. As I told you before, I wanted information on-”

“Yes,” Harry interrupted quickly, “and I told _you_ that we don’t _have_ any information on glowing snake creatures.” Tom’s jaw twitched, as tense as Harry’s own. Merlin, had Harry really found this man charming? That Tom Riddle felt like a world away. How embarrassing.

“Surely there must be _some_ information,” Tom said, placing his hands very carefully on the counter and leaning forward to hiss at Harry, “Whether you give it to me freely, or I have to-” He stepped back quickly at a sound from the backroom, cutting himself off and plastering a blandly charming smile on his face just in time for Maudry to round the corner. She eyed them both suspiciously.

“Y’ain’t gonna find anything ‘bout that here, boy,” she said finally. Harry jolted, wondering how she’d heard them. How _much_ she’d heard.

If Tom was shocked, he didn’t show it, asking, “You... know of what I’m talking about?” The curiosity in his voice was very real. Harry was curious too, his heart in his mouth as he wondered if Maudry actually knew anything about what he was, if she would be giving Tom information that could be held over him.

“Sure,” Maudry said slowly, “creatures with glowing tentacles that’d burn you alive, meaner’n Hungarian horntails an’ vicious as merpeople. Ain’t got a name, but my great aunt said they came from Death’s garden.”

“Death’s garden?” Harry asked. His voice was a cracked whisper, his scars aching and pulling at his skin. When Maudry turned her shrewd eyes on him it felt like she was seeing him, like she _knew_ , and his heart began to crackle in his chest, the metronome inside him coming to life.

“The great beyond. Hell. Whatever you wanna call it. Don’t matter anyways,” she said, turning back to Tom. “The reason you ain’t gonna find anythin’ is ‘cause they don’t exist. It’s a folktale. A story told to keep kids inside at night.”

Tom let out a puff of air that was almost a sigh, clearly disappointed. For his part, Harry was too busy smothering the flame inside him before it was too hot to stifle. He’d gone so long without anything serious to worry about, he’d forgotten how hard it was to quieten the beast when he was stressed. He closed his eyes, breathing through the urge to transform, swallowing down the acid on his tongue and the death caught like seeds between his molars. When he opened his eyes again, they were both watching him, twin expressions of curiosity on their faces. The metronome was quiet, but not silent.

It hadn’t been fully silent since the confrontation with Tom, an ever-present whisper of desire he’d not experienced since Hogwarts. Since he’d spent weeks on end carving _I must not tell lies_ into the back of his hand. He brushed his fingers over the scar now, barely visible unless you knew to look. Nothing like the thick scars like tree roots on his back, or the shiny dimpled slashes on his face. Just a whisper of a thing. Sometimes the scar on his hand was a reminder of his own lack of autonomy. Other times it was a reminder of the monsters that humans could be.

And every so often, in the stillness of the night, when he lost himself to the heady draw of the metronome inside him and spent the twilight hours making home in the terrible body of the beast, it was a reminder of what it felt like to _win_.

Lily

You did what you could to protect your child. You read the books, baby-proofed the house, taught them not to speak to strangers, fed them and hugged them and hoped that it would all be enough. At first, Lily thought it had been. She and James had fumbled their way into parenthood, and somehow managed to raise a sweet and curious and intelligent boy that she was infinitely proud of. But then there had been the attack, and Lily had felt the sand shift beneath them, grains of a future that might have been lost between her finger-tips. They were lucky, really. Lucky that Harry hadn’t turned, would never have to endure the hardship that Remus did. She felt guilty for it, but Remus understood. No one would wish that kind of life on a child.

Still, they’d lost something, that day. It was hard to identify what exactly had changed in Harry. Sometimes she thought she was imagining it, but ultimately, she was his mother, and she knew him, her boy. She knew that they’d done something wrong. It didn’t matter if it was their fault or not, but Harry had suffered an immense trauma as a child, and the scars weren’t the only hurt that lingered. He was quieter than he had been before. More careful in some ways and more foolhardy in others. Would he have always been the type to throw himself at a troll to defend a friend? Had he endured the abuse of a teacher for so long because he didn’t trust his parents to protect him? Or was it just that he was a stubborn boy born of stubborn parents? Was the sadness she saw in him inherent? Would he ever tell her about it, ever move past it? Lily didn’t have the answers, would probably spend the rest of her life trying to figure them out.

In lieu of answers, she would do as she had always done: love him, and hope it was enough.

*

It was James’ turn to cook, likely to the relief of everyone involved, so Lily was in the living room chatting with Remus and Sirius when Harry came through the front door.

“We’re in the living room sweetheart!” she called, smiling at the sound of him kicking off his shoes at the front door. Neither she nor James were particularly bothered about shoes in the house, and Sirius certainly wasn’t in the habit of removing his boots if he could help it. Remus had always taken care to remove his shoes at the front door, though, and as a child Harry had started copying him. Harry wasn’t a particularly tidy person, but the habit inexplicably stuck, and it was always a small joy to see his carefully placed shoes at the door, knowing he was home.

“Hello Remus, Sirius,” Harry said as he shuffled into the living room, leaning over the arm of the sofa to kiss her on the cheek, “hey mum. Dad cooking tonight?”

“Thank Merlin,” Sirius said, grinning lazily when Lily glared at him.

“Your dad is making lasagne, I think. Go say hello and then come back and tell me all about your week, alright?”

“Alright,” Harry said, “back in a minute.”

He disappeared down the hallway, and once she was sure he was out of earshot she turned back to Remus and Sirius, sharing a similarly concerned look with them.

“He looks stiffer than usual, doesn’t he?” she asked them both.

Remus nodded thoughtfully, “his shoulders - has he said anything about his scars hurting?”

“When does he ever?” she asked, not bothering to hide her frustration. “I just - I worry, and he’s never done well with winter, and it's his first year on his own and - god. I sound like my mother.”

“That’s not the worst thing,” Sirius said, glancing back at the doorway, “I think it would be weirder if you weren’t worried about him, Lily. But he’s got Hermione and Ron, and you _know_ those old ladies at that archive are feeding and mothering him to their heart's content. We just have to trust that he - oh - Harry! Come sit, I want to hear about your dusty old books.”

Harry laughed easily as he came back through the doorway, settling into the space Sirius made between him and Remus and submitting to the subsequent hugs with good nature.

“It’s not just old books,” Harry said when Sirius had his fill, adding “there’s newspaper clippings too.”

They laughed, and Sirius rolled his eyes. “Can’t forget the newspaper clippings! Fine, fine, what else have you been up to, though? Anything interesting?”

For a second, there was a flash of something on Harry’s face - fear, uncertainty. But then it was gone, and he was smiling and telling them about the new responsibilities he’d been given, the stories his customers had told him, and the interesting articles he’d come across. For a while, Lily could almost forget the awkward, pained way he walked, the lingering feeling that he was hiding his hurts from them again. That he’d never stopped. They chatted about his work and their own, and then over dinner, between bites of the admittedly wonderful lasagne James had made, he also caught them up on Hermione and Ron and the little bit of work that had taken him to the ministry.

Towards the end of their meal, as Sirius worked on his third helpings, Harry’s expression became thoughtful, tentative. His voice was carefully indifferent when he said, “there’s been this customer.”

“Oh?” James said, mimicking Harry’s faux nonchalance even as he shared a curious look with Lily.

“He’s from the ministry. He uh. He’s a dick. He showed me where Mr Pilferus’ office was - I dunno how I was meant to find it, there were about a hundred offices down that hallway - and he was, well, he came by the archive. That is, after we had lunch, and he _should_ have stopped coming, he knows we don’t have the information he’s looking for, I _told_ him, but he just keeps insisting on another box, _another file Harry, I have the time_. Doesn’t he have a fairly important job? How he’s spending all his time at the archive-”

Lily looked from her husband to her son and back again, wide-eyed. Then she looked to Remus and Sirius, who looked similarly dumbfounded. _Lunch?_ Sirius mouthed. Lily shook her head, clueless as he was. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Harry angry. If she’d _ever_ seen him angry, in all honesty. What in the world had this man done to incite such a reaction?

“He’s...rude to you?” James ventured.

“Almost always,” Harry said, “but I don’t care about _that_.”

“Right, right, so it’s the…” James trailed off, looking to Lily for help. She shrugged; she had no idea where this had come from either. She watched in wonder as Harry gestured with his fork, paying no mind to the pasta caught precariously between the tines.

“ _Bothering_ me. He doesn’t need to be in the archive, and we both know it! I’m sure there’s all sorts of things he has access to in the ministry, and if he’s not going to - to - it doesn’t make _sense_.”

“What’s he researching?” Remus asked politely, a quiver of a smile at the corner of his mouth. But Harry jolted in his seat like he’d been shocked. The fiery anger washed away, replaced by melancholy reticence once again. When he spoke, his answer was mumbled.

“Oh, right, um, just the usual," he said, dropping his fork onto his plate with finality, "awful monsters.”

And just like that, the rare effusiveness was lost, sand shifting beneath their feet. Harry did not speak again for the rest of the night.

Harry

There wasn’t any use pretending he wasn’t going to transform. No reason to fight the _sturm und drang_ that rumbled within him. He left his parents house quietly, hating himself for the way he’d clammed up after a simple question. Hated himself for bringing up Tom Riddle at all. He blamed it on their interaction that morning, the hungry way that Tom had stared at him after Maudry left, like he _knew_ that Harry was fighting with himself, like the idea of Harry losing control was a _good_ thing. And then he’d had the gall to ask Harry to use the research room, as if everything was normal. As if he were just another researcher. Harry couldn’t help himself, telling Tom _you heard her. You won’t find anything_. But Tom had only shrugged amiably, smiled knowingly. Said, _we both know that’s not true, don’t we._

Harry bared his teeth at the memory, kicking his shoes off carelessly as he entered his apartment and stomping past Hermione and Ron where they were curled up together on the couch and quickly entering his bedroom. He yanked open the drawer that contained a small hoard of portkeys, snatching up the first one he saw, only pausing to yell, “ _I’ll be back tomorrow!_ ”

And then he was gone. A swirl of motion, a tug in his gut, and he was landing unceremoniously in a dark field that bordered a nameless forest. Or, it might have had a name, Harry wasn’t sure. Hermione and Ron had given him the portkeys after they’d graduated Hogwarts, and Hermione had assured him that the remote locations she’d fixed them to would be perfectly safe for him to transform in. He hadn’t really asked questions, too busy fighting tears and hugging them both. The different locations had been Ron’s idea, both as a safeguard and also because _you deserve to have a little choice in your life mate_.

Harry was thankful to have friends that cared for him so unconditionally, so absolutely. But if he was honest, location didn’t really matter when he was the beast. He was still himself when transformed, but his thought patterns were different. His priorities changed, his understanding of the world warped through a strange lens. Heat didn’t matter to him. Hard ground or soft grass or craggy rock, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the hunt.

Harry didn’t move to get up from wherever the portkey had taken him. He lay still on the ground, breathing slowly. He closed his eyes, blocking out the soft glow of the moon overhead, listening to the quiet sounds of the night around him. To the wind through the trees. An owl hooting in the distance. The high pitched squeak of bats. The thrum of the earth beneath him, reaching up to meet his fingertips. His own reply, in the rising sound of the metronome, the clicks.

The sound of the hunt. The slick slip of flesh melting away. Creaking and snapping of bones.

The heavy thud as his front paws hit the ground. The crackling sizzle of his electric lights.

The flood of images the clicks bought him; a rabbit burrow with a dozen kittens, an elk grazing quietly, a pack of wolves close enough that he could taste their heartbeats on the wind. His focus was single-minded, sure. His body was built for this. He cast his awareness outward, trying to decide what to eat first, when a scent hit him that was different from the rest. Curious clicking in his chest, rumbling out out out into the world and bringing back to him an image: a man. 

A fast heartbeat. Fat, warm with blood. Wet saliva on a bitten lip. Sweat on cold flesh. _Oh_ Harry thought, turning his body towards the man. 

_Hello._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you enough for the comments on this fic so far, they really have fuelled my writing. I decided to make Maudry come from where I'm from, then immediately became so fond of her I changed around bits in the fic to give her more of a role. I hope you enjoyed her too. Also Lily, who was as fun as she was sad to write. 
> 
> Next up: Tom gets his way. But only a little. :)


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